Nayvis by Giulia Parisi

Private Story

Nayvis

Copyright Giulia Parisi 2024

Date of Work May 2018 - Ongoing

Updated Dec 2019

Location Havana

Topics Black and White, Cuba, Documentary, Hope, Latin America, Photography, Youth

Nayvis (27) is the cuban current best top model. She lives in an apartment at the outskirts of La Habana, Cuba together with her mother, her stepfather and her brother, who she shares the room with. She has three jobs, earns 100 CUC per month, and hers is considered a very good income on the island. Her day starts at 5.30 in order to take 2 busses and be able to get to her first job of the day in time. She has been working in Esperanza’s atelier for the last 5 years, every morning, also because of her dream to become a fashion designer, dream that her Italian boyfriend is helping her realize by sending her different fabrics from Verona , Italy every month.
In the meantime she built herself a very good career as a model, becoming the most paid top model on the island. After leaving the atelier she goes to Habana Vieja to work in a community centre for young troubled teenagers. It has different courses to keep kids away from the streets: she teaches modeling, and hers is the most crowded lesson.
Due to the embargo and lack of advertisement Cuban fashion hasn't developed much from the 50s, and neither have its runways: they're still considered
mostly county fairs or hotel halls shows where wealthy people vaguely look at while they sip their mojitos.
At 12 am her day is finally over. She'll hop on those 2 busses back home and start everything again the next day, and the day after.
The work aims to depict and emphasize the double standard of the industry outside and inside the island, and show, using one of the most paid jobs as a
means, how underpaid people are on the island and how foreign politics keep blocking Cuban socio-economic development,
even nowadays

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